Blog Day 189 Fri 11th November 2011

Great Ocean Road!!

A little factual info to start you off, The Great Ocean Road is known for its famous surf coast, containing some of the best surf beaches, resort towns, coastal scenery, rainforest & waterfalls in Australia, built by WW1 soldiers as a memorial to their fallen colleagues.

We wake up bright & early today so that we can cruise along the Great Ocean road with ease. First stop is Split Point rock, where there are not only some amazing views but also a very impressive 34 metre Light house (known as the white lady). Along the way we spot some cute looking tearooms & houses with the most impressive flowerbed's & lawns (we think that nanny Sylv would love it here). From here we head onto Lorne, it takes a little while to get here & we make a few scenic stops along the way. Once here though our first port of call is to tend to our stomachs. We find a burger bar called the Milk bottle. The fries here caught our eye & the burger doesn't disappoint either. Good job we shared the burger as the pot of fries was huge. Once finished here we headed down to Lorne beach where we were told to walk a little way across the beach to a rocky area. This apparently has sightings of what some people believe could be Dinosaur footprints. Upon arrival however we're not so sure. But we take some pictures anyway & you can decide for yourselves.

The Great Ocean road drive itself is just stunning. You just hug the rugged coast line pretty much all the way & it happens to be a gorgeous day too which helps for the coastal pictures!

The lovely old man at the isite yesterday told us of a road that often gets missed by self-drivers. He told us to turn off at Kennet River, take the first right, then the first left, then drive & just keep driving. When you've driven for about 5 mins, we were told to stop the car, get out & look up into the trees. We do all as he had said & find ourselves surrounded by Eucalyptus tree's. This can only mean one thing…Koala's!! At first we can't see any but as you begin to concentrate you see loads of the furry things, clinging on to branches high up in the trees.

He said that once we had spotted these we were to drive back down the road & stop at the bottom. This is where we see parrots & some other colourful looking birds. A travel group have pulled up & are feeding the birds. They offer us some off the food & soon we are literally surrounded by these gorgeous looking birds from head to toe.

After about 20mins of getting scratched to pieces and Dan getting his hat shat on we leave the birds & jump back into the camper. The next stop is Otway Fly tree top walk & adventures, we have decided not to do this although it is said to be one of the major attractions here. So this pretty much leaves us to keep hugging the coastal line following the road finally inwards through the National park area & then back out to the coast headed for the sight of the 12 Apostles. We stop in a few towns along the way just for a break from driving & a cheeky ice cream…of course. We reach the 12 Apostles sight at around 4ish. The word WOW comes to mind quite quickly. It's quite amazing to read about how they came to be & why some of them are disappearing or have disappeared, also we read how new ones are appearing as well as getting photos of course. After popping along to see Loch Ard Gorg & London Bridge we hit the road once more, this time to head inland where we find a lake area & pull up for the night & crash out.

It has been an amazing day today with lots of stunning areas to view. The Great Ocean road drive is a must for anyone.